split wort brewing

[eck432]

I recently watched a youtube video on splitting wort into two and making different beers from one grain bill, ie playing around with yeasts, dry hops and adjuncts post boil. I have just upgraded to a 10g setup and think this would make a more efficient brewday. Has anyone else been doing this and if so are you willing to share some recipes.

[djbadger]

I've started moving towards this for a while since I got a bigger brew kit, however I haven't been able to make big differences between beers as I still use one boil kettle. I've split into three batches for fermentation though and had good results. In the summer I did a 90% pilsner malt 10% wheat malt brew to about 1045, hopped with 2 or 3 varieties - First Gold was the main one as I recall. With US05 it made a very refreshing summer ale. With Wyeast 3711 French Saison it made a passable saison with the spicy notes you would expect and less hop character, and with Wyeast 1388 Belgian Strong it made a more earthy Belgian style. They were all good beers and enjoyable with very different characters - the Belgian probably the least successful, I think the simple malt base lacked some body or complexity or something to work with the yeast. Temperature control is handy for this sort of thing - I had the first one fermenting at ambient which at the time was about right and the other two in the cabinet at 23 degrees pushing up to about 28 over a week or so.

I'm thinking about doing something similar again but this time trying a lactic souring on one portion. If I can rig up a second boiler that will open the door to lots more experimentation. It does avoid the danger of making shedloads of one perhaps unexciting beer, although the flipside is that if one batch turns out stunning you will wish you had done the whole ten gallons that way!

I'd be interested to hear how you get on.

[eck432]

this is the video that i watched, he has supplied 6 recipes to try from 1 grain bill. Its looks quite a flexible recipe and i might change it a little to suit the 2 recipes that i will be brewing on the day. I am planning on trying the american amber ale and the belgian pale ale after christmas. I will come back with some results once i have done them.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8kSb-_9woZk

[timbowden]

I watched this recently as well and was intrigued by the process and also in how the different yeasts change the same wort. I normally brew about 75 litres a go so this would be good to try and get a few styles out of one brew day!
t

[Fastline]

I have done this with 2 Smash brews easy beezy

Good for learning your hop flavors

[shepp]

As the video shows you need to use more than just yeast to make the different beers like candy sugar and coriander for the belgium beer and some dry hopping for an IPA'ish beer.